When I moved from my last house, I decided to make the monumental decision to throw away all the tapes and CDs of the music I’d made three decades before when I was signed as a songwriter.
Just the other day, my friend asked me why I didn’t make digital copies of them on file. My answer was a simple one: emotion.
I think it’s true for most artists when they say the reason they create their art is for the feeling they get when creating it, along with the pleasure they get from others enjoying it. Mine certainly was.
So, for me, the records I kept of my music were the emotional ones: that burst of euphoria when creating the songs and themes in the first place, coupled with the pleasure I got in playing them for others, along with the emotional moments both my audience and I shared back then.
That was enough. I didn’t need to hear the songs over and over again to relive those moments. I could just remember the feelings at that time.
I can’t help but feel there’s an obsession with clinging onto physical things. It’s freeing to let things go and, instead, hold on to the most important part of creativity: the memories. They never fade, no matter where the physical copies lie. Is that true for you?